A shot Montagu's
Photo by Folkert de Boer.
2019. While walking back from station 1 to the office we meet Gela with a Montagu’s Harrier on his wrist. This beautiful animal has been shot and was found along the road. Gela is known to take care of injured birds and thus it was brought to him from a neighbouring village. He will try to heal it, but we all know that the bird's chances of reaching its wintering grounds are very low. It cannot use its left wing and it’s clearly weakened. It is almost as if it has resigned itself already with its fate.
Some counters and tourists gather to admire the bird. It is not often we get a chance to see such a splendid bird this close. Although impressed, I still do prefer to see them flying over...
That evening we get the message that the bird did not survive it’s injuries.
Photo by Folkert de Boer.
Photo by Folkert de Boer.
August 2014: Opening the Green Café
Six years ago the Green Café opened its doors in Sakhlavasho. Every autumn it’s the perfect place to celebrate a good day of migration with counters and other bird enthusiasts in the village while having a cold beer, some local chacha or the magical green chartreuse. We also often use the place to give our raptor ID presentations or have counters talk about their ornithological experiences from their home countries. However, the best reason to keep on returning to the Green Café is of course the barman, and guesthouse owner, Olegi!
20-08-2014 Bee-eater chorus
Photo by Wim Bovens.
It was a very quiet day, with a total day count of only 329 indiviuals for station 1. Counters could relax for the time being, and prepare for the more serious work in a few days. While hardly any raptors are flying by, European bee-eaters color the sky above station 1. A lot of people associate this sound immediately with Batumi. There’s never a dull day with bee-eaters around!
If you don’t know the sound bee-eaters make: browse the Xeno-Canto catalog.
Photo by Wim Bovens.
Photo by Wim Bovens.
Photo by Wim Bovens.
17-08 from 2011 until 2018 — The first days of the count
2016. Waiting for the birds.
For almost a decade, our counts started today, on the 17th of August.
The comment on Trektellen for this day in 2017 states:
1st day of the BRC 2017 count! Nice start for the migration with already some Honey Buzzards and additional species. Other observations include observations of Common Swifts (>550 ind.) and a local Peregrine.
The team was similarly enthusiastic in 2018:
The first count of the season! Whilst some of us were constructing the new shelter, we could already enjoy good raptor migration and a good diversity of species for this time in the season. For the past days, we have consistently seen relatively high numbers of Montagu's Harriers migrate south. Will be interesting to see how that develops as the season progresses.
It is nice to read these posts from the beginning of the season when the team is not yet spoiled with the constant passage of raptors and are happy with tallying less than 500 birds in 11 hours. This is about to change soon.
The leisurely first days are good to get to know the team, re-read the book and practise your raptor identification skills. Oh, and carry the green chairs to station 2. Full of anticipation, you don’t mind the slow days. Afterall, when the day is done, a delicious meal will be waiting for you at your Georgian home.
Counting in 2014.
Part of the 2015 team.
Happy coordinator team from 2017.
2018 team presenting the 2018 T-shirt design.
Although the beginning of the season tends to be hot, we also get some (very welcome) overcast days.
Djame-djame! A deserved moment at the end of each day.
12-08-2019 — It's not just raptors in the bottleneck
The sky, photographed at 400mm, chockfull of dragonflies. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.
12-08-2019
In 2019 we started the count officially on the 12th of August for the first time. We made the decision to start a week earlier to avoid missing the earliest migrants, so as hoped and expected the first days of the 2019 season were very slow. What we ‘missed’ in terms of raptors, however, was made up for by absolutely mind-boggling migration of Dragonflies. During the early days of the season hundreds of thousands of them — if not more — headed south. Even for someone who intentionally tries to avoid the Dragonfly-craze that’s growing among birders lately (as I enjoy the low-period for birding in summer and don’t feel like adding ANOTHER addiction to an already long list): it was a fantastic sight to behold. The photos and video really don’t do justice to the massive movement we witnessed, but they should give a vague idea. In the end, it’s clear that the Batumi bottleneck is not just home to some of the best raptor migration in the world, but also of visible insect migration.
Not as skilled a dragonfly photographer as a bird photographer, but when there’s so many around… Photo by Bart Hoekstra.